“Shattered Apparitions of the Western Wind” is an extended work for piano and electronics in four movements commissioned for Kathleen Supové’s “Digital Debussy” program. Imagined as a hallucinatory duet with Claude Debussy and further inspired by Hurricane Sandy, the piece couples Supové’s wild playing with distorted fragments of the original prelude, on site recordings of Hurricane Sandy, and lush Debussy harmonies.

I had already chosen to use Debussy’s stormy prelude “What the West Wind Saw” (Ce Qu’A Vu Le Vent D’Ouest) as a starting point for this piece, referencing Debussy’s untamed and imaginative interpretation of the destructive forces of nature, when the Eastern Seaboard was hit by Hurricane Sandy. After experiencing the power of the storm first hand, I was struck by the wild contrasts that the hurricane left in her wake: some sections of the city were untouched, while adjoining areas suffered total destruction. I used melodic and harmonic elements from the original prelude in small, untouched phrases alongside altered fragments that were seemingly twisted, distorted, and destroyed by the wind to echo these odd contradictions. The electronic backing track is made up entirely of the sounds of piano and wind: altered fragments of the original prelude are coupled with on-site recordings of Hurricane Sandy. I also morphed these two sources electronically to create oddly intertwined hybrid sounds that meld the noisy, crackling energy of the wind with the prelude’s tumultuous piano. The piece shifts between the acoustic and electronic realms, contrasting the eerie stillness of the eye of the storm with the violent force of the wind rending everything in its path, creating an electronic counterpart to a windswept landscape. Composed for Kathleen Supové, the piece is driven by her unique approach to the piano, her mad energy, her dramatic, virtuosic style, and the notion of this dynamic pianist duetting with a ghostly rendition of Debussy’s interpretation of universally destructive forces.

“Shattered Apparitions of the Western Wind” was commissioned as part of a national series of works from NEW MUSIC USA’s Commissioning Music/USA program, which is made possible by generous support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund.”

Thanks to Michael Raphael, field recordist of “Rabbit Ears Audio”, for the recordings of Hurricane Sandy.

Short film “Storefront Diva” is a collage from a 4-hour performance inspired by Joseph Cornell’s dream fragment in which he saw Claude Debussy playing piano in a storefront.

Phase One took place on December 27, 2011 from 4 — 8 pm at 159 Bleecker St. — a pop-up store location directly opposite Le Poisson Rouge, in the heart of Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Supové performed a composition by Joan La Barbara in a special set and costume designed by Marija Plavšić, accompanied by Aleksandar Kostić’s video installation.

Phase Two of “Storefront Diva” will take place at The Flea Theater in Tribeca in June 2012. Kathleen Supové will perform a new composition by Joan La Barbara and Aleksandar Kostić will create a new video installation creating a fusion of past and present.

“Storefront Diva” is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, with addition funding from the New York University Adjunct Faculty Professional Development Fund and American Music Center/Composer Assistance Program. Generous support was also provided by Yamaha Artist Services and Materials for the Arts, DCA.

Zero Waste is a duo for pianist Kathleen Supove and computer, which challenges the live performer to both create and sight-read a new piece on the spot. The computer displays two measures of software-generated music in common music notation. Once Kathleen begins playing, the software begins to transcribe her performance into the score. The performer in turn, “sight reads” this score.

As the performer continues to sight read and play, the computer continues to listen and notate, creating an interactive loop where performance errors and expressive deviations lead to new musical worlds. Over time the challenge of sight reading and the limits of music notation evolve the piece into something very different than how it began.

“One of my students compared Zero Waste to the game of ‘telephone’, while someone else said it brought to mind Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in a Room”, where the emphasis is on the resonances in a system rather than the source material itself. Each performance of Zero Waste is unique: each starts with a new two-measure computer-generated “seed” of music, and of course each sight-reading will be rich with variation. The rehearsal and performance presented here took place at the Music in the Global Village conference in Budapest, as performed by Kathleen Supove on Dec 11, 2009″